How do I have only shortcut keys for an action?

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The New Action wizard allows you to uncheck both menu and toolbar placement for your action and only assign a keyboard shortcut. To learn how to do this manually, read on. Refer to TaT_HackingNetBeansXMLLayerPartOne for more details.

Trick #1

  • Retain the action’s basic registration:

<folder name="Actions">
    <folder name="Tools">
        <file name="org-nvarun-tat-SayCheez.instance"/>
    </folder>
</folder>

  • This registers an action as a Global Menu Item:

<folder name="Menu">
    <folder name="Tools">
        <file name="org-nvarun-tat-SayCheez.shadow">
            <attr name="originalFile"
                  stringvalue="Actions/Tools/org-nvarun-tat-SayCheez.instance"/>
            <attr name="position" intvalue="150"/>
        </file>
    </folder>
</folder>

  • This registers an action as a Global Toolbar Button:

<folder name="Toolbars">
    <folder name="Build">
        <file name="org-nvarun-tat-SayCheez.shadow">
            <attr name="originalFile"
                  stringvalue="Actions/Tools/org-nvarun-tat-SayCheez.instance"/>
            <attr name="position" intvalue="325"/>
        </file>
    </folder>
</folder>

  • To assign a shortcut key, replace either or both of them with something like the following:

<folder name="Shortcuts">
    <file name="O-F3.shadow">
        <attr name="originalFile"
              stringvalue="Actions/Tools/org-nvarun-tat-SayCheez.instance"/>
    </file>
</folder>

Trick #2

  • In the above example the action has the shortcut key Alt+F3, which is represented as O-F3. In general, if you have some key combination that uses Alt (or the equivalent on Mac OS X), then use O. Separate modifiers from the base keycode name with -, and append .shadow for the filename. Ctrl (or its Mac equivalent) is represented by D, and Shift*by S. (C and A represent the literal *Ctrl and Alt keys, but this is less portable.)

Tips to Remember

  1. Following are some keycode equivalents. See Javadoc for KeyEvent for the full list:

    • A to Z (as is), F1 to F12 (as is), 0 to 9 (as is)

    • / as SLASH, \ as BACK_SLASH

    • ; as SEMI_COLON

    • . as PERIOD

    • ‘ as QUOTE

See also DevFaqKeybindings.

(Reposted from this entry on NetBeans Zone.)